I'd Rather Not Be Dead (8 page)

“Oh,” he says, giving me a
pitying look that really pisses me off. I don't need pity.

“Hey, Finn!” one of his
teammates calls. “Talking to your self again?”

Cooper Finnegan smiles
sheepishly. “Nah. You must be hallucinating.”

The other boy chuckles. “Yeah. I
do that a lot.”

Laughing along, Cooper Finnegan
pulls out the chair next to mine and logs into its computer. He
loads a word processor then types, “If you use too much energy,
your body shuts down. It's normal.”

“Nice to know,” I grumble.

His eyes narrow toward me. “What
did I do now?” his fingers ask.

Ignoring him, I try to press a
key. Same deal as yesterday.

There's more tapping from beside
me. “That's not going to work anytime soon,” Cooper Finnegan
types.

“I can use a TV remote,” I snap
at him. “I can use a computer.”

“You can use a remote?” he asks,
out loud. He clears his throat and goes back to using the keyboard.
“You shouldn't be able to do that yet, Drew. It took my granddad
five years to learn to flip a light switch.”

“Buttons are easier than
switches.” But I also made Cris drop his phone, didn't I?

“What?” Cooper Finnegan types.
“You're thinking something.”

I shake my head. “I just don't
think moving stuff is that hard for me. I moved your pen in physics
too, remember?” An idea strikes. “Are there different types of
ghosts?”

My companion considers that.
“What do you mean?” scrolls over the screen. “You think you're a
poltergeist?”

I shrug. “Ever met one?”

His head shakes before he types.
“It's possible. What else have you done?”

“I made a barstool spin.” I
think, trying to remember if I've done anything else. “Changed the
channel several times. And...” I take a breath. “I made Cris break
his phone.”

Cooper Finnegan's fingers fly
over a few keys. “How'd you that?”

“I tried to grab it from his
hand. And it came out, but I couldn't hold onto it...”

I'm incredibly aware of being
closely watched. He's wondering why I would try to steal Cris's
phone and he's looking at me intently enough that he might as well
just ask.

“None of your business why.”

He watches me for another
second, then nods and moves his eyes back to his screen. He taps
the keys several times before he starts typing again. “If you could
type to yourself, what would you type?”

“I don't know,” I admit.

The keys click slowly, almost in
time with the clock on the wall as it counts off seconds. “I'll
type it for you.”

I stare at his profile. “What
happened to events being unchangeable?”

He won't look at me, but he
answers out loud. “Doesn't mean we can't try.” He shifts in the
seat, then types, “So? What do I tell her?”

But I don't know what to tell
her. “Dear me,” I imagine writing. “I'm you from the future. We're
dead. Try to avoid it, would you?”

I sigh. “I don't know how I
died. I don't know what to warn her against.”

The bell rings but Cooper
Finnegan stays where he is, waiting on me. I wave him off. “Go to
class.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” I look at the students
leaving the room. Where any of them part of my death? “I need to
figure out what to tell her.”

“Okay.” He logs out, stands and
grabs his backpack, tossing it over his shoulder in a way that's
almost graceful. “Let me know.”

“Yeah.”

I let him walk ahead of me to
class, even though we're going to the same place. Halfway there,
though, I jog to catch up to him. “Are you really going to help
me?”

“Yeah.” Out of the corner of his
eye, he looks at me.

“Why?”

His eyebrows rise.

“I mean...” I take a deep
breath. “We've never gotten along. You can't stand me. Why help
me?”

He looks away. “Maybe I just
don't want your ghost following me around forever.”

That statement shouldn't sting.
It shouldn't. But it does.

“You'll be free of me when you
go to college anyway,” I mutter through a blast of depression. “I
can't leave Mayberry. Ever.”

“This place isn't that bad.”

“That's what Fray said.”

He shoots me a questioning
look.

“This ghost I met.” I sigh.
“Lives in the hunting club. Hasn't been half as helpful as one
could hope.”

Cooper Finnegan makes a
noncommittal noise. “Yeah. I know him.”

He pauses, letting a couple cut
him off to go through the door first.

It's the other me, plastered
against Cris's side as she admires his new phone, a shiny high-end
model that all but shrieks drug dealer. Guess they're not fighting
anymore.

For half a second, I see
something truly nasty cross over Cooper Finnegan's face, but it's
gone before I can figure out what it is. And I don't have the
courage to ask.

I follow my medium to his desk
instead of following TOM to mine. Watching the way she's looking at
Cris is like voyeurism, getting in the middle of it would just be
creepy. “They look like a real couple, don't they?”

Cooper Finnegan grunts and
flings himself into his seat. He glances toward them but looks
quickly away.

“They're not, you know.” A numb
sadness creeps over me. “Not really. They're just friends who fool
around.”

“That what you call it?” His
eyes go to them again but, like last time, move away quickly again.
His jaw is clenched tight and something pulses in his throat.

“Finn!” a voice calls from the
doorway. Bobbi stands there, clasping her books to her chest. The
pose should seem innocent but somehow it manages to be slutty.
“I'll see you tonight, won't I?”

“Wouldn't miss it.”

The words are hostile, but Bobbi
doesn't notice the tone and she preens in satisfaction.

I narrow my eyes on Cooper
Finnegan. “What crawled up your butt?”

He glares back at me in
silence.

TOM asks him the same thing from
behind me.

He shakes his head and turns his
face to the front of the room.

A simple black pen lays on his
desk, waiting to take notes. I reach down, pick it up, and wave it
meaningfully toward him.

His eyes fly open in horror
before his hand leaps out to grab the writing implement. It's the
expression which makes me realize anyone in the room could have
seen what I just did.

Anyone could see...

“Don't!” Cooper Finnegan scrawls
in large letters. “Freaking people out isn't going to get you
anywhere,” he writes smaller, his letters sharp and cramped.
“Exorcists are real.”

“Exorcists?” Feeling woozy, I
blink down at him.

He nods and scrawls some more.
“Yes. They'll be able to send you on. Do you want that?”

The question seems to be asked
not as a threat but as an offer.

“Send me on to where?”

Cooper Finnegan shrugs, his eyes
firmly locked onto the paper and going nowhere near me. “Don't
know. No one ever comes back.”

“I don't believe in heaven,” I
point out.

The corners of his mouth tug
upward, though he tries to keep his lips pressed in a straight
line. The pen glides along. “You don't believe in ghosts
either.”

That's a good point. But I still
haven't seen any evidence there's a life beyond this one. The fact
that this one is beyond the last doesn't comfort me much because
there's no reason to believe the chain goes on forever. At some
point, I'll simply stop existing.

“No exorcist,” I state
firmly.

He nods and turns the page. When
he writes again, it's to copy down the prompt our English teacher
scrawls on the board.

Chapter Eight

Worried about The Spirit making
a comeback, I trail after Finn for the rest of the school day, but
when it fails to make another appearance before classes let out, I
decide to follow myself as she leaves the building. Which means I
follow Cris since they're together. His arm's around her and he
keeps leaning down to whisper things into her ear.

She swats him lightly on the
arm. “It's amazing how sentimental a week of celibacy makes
you.”

“Who says I was celibate?” He
chuckles and she joins in, thinking he's joking. I'm fairly sure
he's not.

As if to confirm my suspicions,
he doesn't answer the snazzy new phone when it rings. TOM asks who
it is, but he evades the question. “It doesn't matter. The only
person I want to talk to is right here.”

I can't believe she's letting
him get away with that. But, then... What would I put up with to
feel him touch me again?

“Stalking yourself, luv?”

The couple I'm trailing walk
through Fray without reacting.

“Where have you been?” I ask,
stopping to stare at him. His strange eyes glitter and dance while
he watches me with a devastating grin. He's abandoned the leather
jacket today, wearing worn jeans and soft green flannel.

“Miss me?”

I smack him, happy to hear the
resulting thump. “You promised to show me how to do that
teleporting thing. It would have been useful when I was running for
my life from the frigging Spirit.”

Never mind that I somehow
managed to do it anyway.

“Running for your life?” He
frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Yesterday? The Spirit was
really strong. Everyone was all hidden away in their Places of
Power.” My finger jabs at Fray. “Everyone except for me. Because I
don't have one!”

He tries to put his arm around
me but takes a step back at my expression. “Everyone has a Place of
Power. You just don't know where yours is.”

“It doesn't matter!” My hands
clench into fists at my sides. “What matters is that you left me
alone sprinting for all I was worth to have Cooper Finnegan save
me! Cooper Finnegan!”

Fray's expression says he's
suddenly caught on he's dealing with a lunatic.

“Do you have any idea how it
feels to have to rely on him, of all people?”

“Can't say I do.” Fray shakes
his head and waves me down the street toward his tavern. “So Cooper
Finnegan... You mean the Shadow Walker? The one they call
Finn?”

The one they call Finn? I roll
my eyes at the wording. “Yeah. The Pine Ridge poster boy.
Valedictorian. Captain of the football team. On every dance court
we have. Center of every social event. Plastered all over the
frigging yearbook.”

My fellow deceased gives the
pavement a faint smile as we walk. “Not a friend of yours?”

I glare. “Not even
remotely.”

“And how did he save you from
The Spirit?” Fray isn't looking anywhere near me, but I get the
impression my answer has his undivided attention.

“When we touch, it goes
away.”

“Goes away?” Fray moves his eyes
to stare at me. “Completely?”

“Yeah.” Why is he looking at me
like I have just grown a set of horns?

My erstwhile guide to the
afterlife takes his time starting his next sentence. “Usually, when
we're in our Places of Power, it hovers nearby until it gets bored.
It doesn't simply vanish because we're somewhere protected.”

“Try sprinting to a medium next
time,” I suggest dryly.

“It don't think it's because
he's a Walker. I've never heard of one who was able to do that.” He
stops in front of the club, but paces back and forth in the parking
lot instead of going in. “In fact, I knew someone who was taken
while talking to one.”

“Talking wouldn't help,” I say
instantly. “I had to touch him. Just being near him wasn't
enough.”

Fray stops moving and looks at
me. “What did it feel like?”

“Feel like?” I shrug at his
impatient nod. “Warm? Like he had a fever?”

“Not what did he feel like.”
Fray gives an annoyed growl. “Was there a sensation when you
touched? A change in atmosphere maybe?”

“The air seemed to get thinner,”
I say slowly, concentrating on my memories. “A pressure released.
It was suddenly easier to breathe. And, of course, the fog
vanished.”

“Any stillness?”

I consider. “I guess you could
describe it that way. A sudden calm.”

“Well, isn't that
interesting?”

“Isn't what interesting?” I
snap. I hate it when people talk over me.

Fray's look is gentle. “You do
have a Place of Power, luv.”

“Yippee.” I fold my arms, tilt
my head to the side, and wait. “And it's where?”

“Cooper Finnegan.”

I snort. “Yeah, right. His head
might be big enough to take up the whole town, but he isn't a
place.”

“Doesn't have to be.” Fray seems
very confident of what he's saying. After centuries of death, I
suppose he should be. “A Place of Power is simply what you're
haunting. I'm haunting this bar because the square where I died
used to be here. That jackass in the hardware store haunts it. The
sweet little girl up in the alleyway... Well, it's her alley. Just
like the library belongs to that librarian who was poisoned
there.”

“What? No one ever poisoned a
librarian.” I shake my head. No, not getting distracted. “Are you
implying I'm haunting Cooper Finnegan?”

“No one was ever caught
poisoning a librarian.” Fray flashes me a smile. “Not the same
thing as no one poisoning her. And, yes, I think that's exactly
what you're doing.”

“Why would I haunt Cooper
Finnegan? I can't stand the guy.”

“We could wonder how much he
fails to stand you in return.”

It takes me a while to figure
out what he's saying and then I have to laugh. “Cooper Finnegan
didn't murder me. He might be an idiot and a conceited jerk, but
he's not a killer.”

“An idiot?” Fray asks. “I
thought you said he was valedictorian.”

“He is. Or probably will be,
anyway.”

Fray's eyes sparkle. “So he's an
idiot who gets better grades than you?”

“Yes.” I glare. “What's your
point, Fray?”

“Point? Oh, no point.” He gives
me a maddening grin and bounces on the balls of his feet.